Fall 2025: Franck Sorbier's El Dorado
Franck Sorbier’s Fall 2025-2026 haute couture collection drew its narrative from the 16th-century Colombian myth that attracted Spanish conquistadors seeking a golden city.
The myth of a golden city in the Colombian highlands where an indigenous ruler, covered in gold dust, would ceremonially bathe in a sacred lake was born from the rituals of the Chibcha people near Bogotá, and has become a symbol of unattainable desire that drove explorers to pillage entire civilizations in pursuit of an illusion.
The presentation featured a theatrical confrontation between Inca deities and conquistadors, opening with Mama Quilla, the Inca goddess, wearing a sheath dress, celestial diadem, and carrying a divine staff.
As the story evolved, the color palette moved from golds and terra cotta evoking Inca deities to burgundy and black to evoking conquistadors. Sorbier's signature compression technique appeared alongside scalloped lace and fine embroidery work. The collection incorproatedleather thigh-high boots, crushed velvet coats, and hand-draped metallic organzas.
For Sorbier, who still creates most of his dresses himself, the modern Eldorado would be "working in better conditions, without fear of tomorrow, with a serene soul to best cultivate our garden"—a reference to Voltaire's Candide that transforms the collection into a statement about sustainable creativity over endless commercial pursuit.
